


A Very Granger Reunion

by Colubrina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi, cinderella retelling, family reunion trope, mouse!Theo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/pseuds/Colubrina
Summary: When Hermione sets out to meet her tiresome cousins for their annual reunion dinner she knows it will be a chore. But she didn't expect to find herself at the restaurant with Blaise(who for some unknowable reason of his own was flirting with her cousins), an ugly dress, no contacts, a missing Draco, and a mouse quietly getting drunk in her purse.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott
Comments: 39
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

Hermione rubbed a hand across her forehead. She’d managed to fight her hair into a bun that would make the strictest ballet mistress happy but she’d lost her contacts somewhere, probably France. She assumed they were with the rest of her luggage having a grand time without her.

She blamed Draco.

She’d really meant to somehow make herself look _good_ for this torturous dinner. Once a year, she chanted to herself. Just see your rotten, bigoted, miserable cousins once a year. It would make your parents happy, assuming they still remembered any of these people.

It had occurred to her that a total memory charm that wiped your recollection of this particular branch of the Granger family might be a bit of a blessing but she’d squelched that thought as too cruel. She could manage to be kind to these people. She could be kind to Narcissa Malfoy. She could be kind – or at least civil - to Dolores Umbridge. She could be kind to her cousins.

At least she had her glasses and she’d found a single dress wadded in the bottom of her bag that she’d done her best to iron and freshen but, as she slipped the frames over her nose and looked at herself in the mirror of her hotel room, she had to admit she looked like nothing so much as a housekeeper out for a spree. A very nearsighted housekeeper.

Bloody random curses. Who knew you could curse someone into lousy eyesight?

She wished she could blame Draco for that one, but, whatever the tosser’s flaws were, he hadn’t done that.

She looked at Theo who was perched on the counter in the hotel bathroom using a paw to clean his whiskers with utter, adorable, seriousness. “This is all Draco’s fault, you know,” she told him. “If he hadn’t insisted we could trust the hotel’s floo service I’d have all my things and look like a princess instead of _this._” She waved her hand to indicate her frumpy appearance and Theo looked at her through his little beady eyes.

“Boo-ti-ful,” he pronounced.

She sighed and bent down to kiss his tiny head. “And you are the cutest mouse I’ve ever seen,” she said. “And we’ll figure out how to get you unstuck one of these days.”

He ran up her arm and perched on her shoulder. 

“I don’t think they’ll let you in the restaurant,” she said with a frown and transfigured her giant, sloppy bag to a much smaller square handbag and settled him carefully within it. “Not that I’d leave you up here alone. Who knows what you’d get into?”

He squeaked in protest. 

“I _promise_ I’ll slip you cheese.” There was a mousy ‘harrumph’ so she added, “and whiskey.”

She gave her appearance one last, irritated, glance before heading down to the restaurant. This really was all Draco’s fault. Not only was her stuff missing, he was off tracking it down instead of helping her cope with her horrible, horrible cousins. Every year he managed to find some way to _not_ be at this dinner. A work problem. His mother had some vague but serious 24-hour illness that required him to dance attendance upon her. Harry Potter’s stag night. Always something.

Her horrible, horrible cousins were waiting for her at the entrance to the restaurant.

“Hermione,” one of them cooed. “You look… tired. Have you been feeling all right?”

“Drizella,” Hermione said, leaning forward to kiss the woman on first one cheek and then the other. “What a lovely dress.”

There, Hermione thought to herself. I have been honest. Mostly. It _was _a lovely dress. It just looked dreadful on Drizzy. Of course, almost everything did. Still, bless her heart, she tried and she’d squeezed herself into an outfit that suited neither her colouring nor her figure but that was _the_ hot item from this year’s collections.

Narcissa had it, Hermione recalled. It looked good on Narcissa.

“Thank you,” Drizzy said, spinning in place. “It’s a bit beyond your reach, I’m sure, but you do read fashion magazines, right? Even if you can’t – “

“Driz!” Anastasia exclaimed, “I thought we agreed not to talk about poor Hermione’s situation.”

“Right,” Drizzy flashed Hermione a patently insincere smile. “I’m sorry. I always forget you just dropped out of school and did that hippy thing for a while. I’m sure it’s hard to get back into the work force after taking time off like that. But we’re really proud of you for, uh –“

“It’s good to see you,” Ana said, interrupting her sister. 

“It’s good to see you too,” Hermione said. “Should be get our table?”

‘Oh yes,” Ana said. “This place is just impossible to get reservations at, you know. I had to have my boss made them for me. This is just _the_ place to eat right now.”

“Don’t worry,” Drizzy said, patting Hermione’s hand. “We’ll get the check. You just get whatever you want.”

“Thanks,” Hermione said.

She glanced over at the bar and smiled a bit wanly at Blaise. He’d promised – absolutely promised – to not bother her. She could see he hadn’t been able to resist positioning himself to watch the show, however. Theo was trying to wave at the man from her bag and she could see Blaise snicker at the sight of the tiny black mouse hanging onto the edge of her bag. She wondered how long it would take Blaise to send the dratted rodent a shot of his favorite booze.

She’d barely taken her seat when the waiter brought over a round of shots. “Courtesy of the owner,” the man said. 

Drizzy and Ana cooed and made a noise Hermione could only describe as gurgling. “Is he _here_?” they squealed in unison.

Drizzy turned to Hermione. “Not that you’d know this, but the son of this continental beauty opened this place. She’s a celebrity, mostly just for her looks, but if the pictures do him any justice at all he’s stunning. Just dark skin and wide eyes and this smile that would make a lesbian melt.”

Hermione blinked her eyes a few times. Oh yes, she’d forgotten about their knack for saying jarringly inappropriate things.

“He’s at the bar, ladies,” the waiter said, waving a hand toward Blaise.

While Drizzy and Ana were distracted waving to Blaise and trying to get him to come over Hermione took her shot glass, poured most of it out into the flower vase at the table, and placed what little was left inside her bag. “You be careful,” she hissed.

“Tank oo!” floated up to her.

When she straightened in her seat she saw to her horror that Blaise was bowing over Drizzy’s hand. Hermione tried not to glare at him. So much for his promises. Great. Now she was at this restaurant with Blaise, who for some unknowable reason of his own was flirting with her cousins, an ugly dress, no contacts, no Draco, and a mouse who was, she assumed, quietly getting drunk in her purse.

“Sit,” Ana chirped. “Don’t mind ‘Mione. She’s, um, a bit of a free spirit.”

“She lived in a tent for a _year,_” Drizzy said in a stage whisper.

“I’m sitting right here,” Hermione pointed out. “And I do remember my year of camping.”

“I imagine that would be difficult to forget,” Blaise said, smirking at her – actually smirking, the bastard. She was going to kick his arse later.

“It was an adventure,” she said. “Should we order?”

“No, no,” Ana said, glaring at Hermione. “Let’s have another round.” She looked at the table. “What happened to yours?” she asked Hermione.

“Gave it to a mouse,” Hermione said blandly.

“’Mione,” Drizzy hissed as Blaise struggled not to laugh.

“Why don’t I have the sommelier send over a bottle?” he suggested and, with a few whispers to the man, it was done, along with a request for the cheese platter.

Hermione sat and gritted her teeth as Blaise, flawlessly pretending not to know her, flirted with Drizzy and Ana. He complimented their clothing with only a faint mocking glint in his eye. He admired their shoes. He asked how they’d heard of his little establishment. He, at long last, as Hermione was dropping a slice of brie into her purse for Theo, asked how they knew Hermione.

“We’re cousins,” Ana said. “So tragic, her parents just disappeared when she was in school – some weird boarding school up in Scotland for arty kids or something – and she dropped out and did that camping thing.”

“She’s the plain Jane of the family but we love her anyway,” Drizzy said, her tone filled with syrup. “You know what they say about family.”

“They’re the people most likely to lock you in a cupboard?” Blaise asked.

Hermione almost choked on her cheese.

“Umm, no,” Drizzy said, exchanging a puzzled glance with Ana. “They’re where you go for people who have to take you in.”

“And why does the lovely Hermione need taking in?” Blaise asked.

“Well,” Drizzy said, “I mean, we haven’t taken her in. She… what _do_ you do, Hermione?”

“Nothing,” Hermione said.

“Oh my _god_,” Ana said. “Are you on the _dole_?” She sounded horrified. “What would your parents say? Can’t you get an honest job? I know we’re looking for custodians at work and I’m sure I could get you a position. I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.” She was looking at Blaise, however, not Hermione, and her face was filled with embarrassment rather than concern.

“I thought family were the people who had to take you in,” Blaise said, sounding amused now. “Sounds more like family are the people who get you low level scullery-type jobs.” He took a sip from his glass of wine. “I think I’ll stay with my definition that family are the people most likely to offer you a cupboard to sleep in.”

“Well, family are the most important thing,” Hermione said, holding onto her glass. “I’m sure I’d prefer to be in one that would do anything for one another.”

“I’d do anything for you, ‘Mione,” Drizzy protested. “I mean, it’s not your fault you’re poor and plain and a failure.”

Blaise was suddenly taken by a fit of coughing. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think I swallowed something wrong.”

Hermione dropped a slice of apple from the cheese plate into her purse and tried to focus on the sound of Theo munching on it to tune out her cousins flinging themselves at Blaise.

“So,” Drizzy turned her attention to Hermione again. “Are you still a spinster, ‘Mione?”

“I’m only 25,” Hermione said, sipping at her wine and reminding herself that this was once a year, that it was too difficult to explain to these people that she lived in a world that was parallel to theirs and that she couldn’t exactly explain what she’d been doing since she was eleven to a pair of difficult girls she didn’t care about anyway. “I don’t think that quite counts as ‘spinster’.”

“But you can’t find _anyone_?” Ana asked. “I mean, I know you’re not exactly a _catch_, not like Drizzy and I, but surely _someone_ out there is interested in you.”

“If you just tried a little harder with your appearance,” Drizzy said, leaning toward Hermione. “Dressed a little better. I mean, you’re practically in rags. Maybe did something with your hair. A good stylist can work magic, you know.”

Blaise did that coughing thing again.

“I’m afraid all the magic in the world can’t quite tame my hair,” Hermione said, “But, as it happens, I do have a boyfriend.”

“You _do_?” Drizzy sounded genuinely shocked. “Who?” she demanded.

“His name’s Draco –“

“_Draco_?” Ana raised her eyebrows in polite dismay. “Is he one of your arty friends?”

“As a matter of fact we did meet at school,” Hermione said, “though he wasn’t one of my camping buddies.” She looked at Blaise who was definitely nearly choking now. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you need to go walk it off or something?”

“Oh,” he said, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I just… arty. You have an ‘arty’ boyfriend.”

“Do you have something against the arts?” Hermione asked.

“Oh no,” Blaise said. “In fact, I spent some time studying the, uh, arts myself.”

“Really?” Ana cooed, her attention focused on Blaise again. “Tell me all about it.”

Blaise, however, had seen something at the door to the restaurant that had caught his eye. “I’m sorry, ladies,” he said, “I really do have to go and check on something.” He smirked at Hermione. “I hope to see you later.”

“You will,” she muttered. “Oh, you will.”

“Why?” Drizzy asked as Blaise walked away. “What would a man like that want with _you_?”

“Very little, I suspect,” Hermione said.

“That’s right,” Ana said. “You stay in your place with your little _arty_ boyfriend and – oh my God.”

“What,” Drizzy asked. 

Ana was pointing at the doorway where Blaise had, Hermione saw with a tired sigh, met Draco who had, it would seem, managed to make an appearance after all. “It’s Drake Malfoy,” she was making that squeaking, gurgling sound again. “The heir to Malfoy Enterprises.”

Hermione turned and waited for the inevitable.

“What are you _wearing_?” Draco nearly shouted at her. 

“The _bags_,” she said. “This was all I had that was even close to suitable.”

“So go shopping,” he said. “Why won’t you just... you know perfectly well we have accounts at any store you could want. When you told me the bags were missing and I said I’d track them down I didn’t think that meant you’d go about in… isn’t that the dress you wore last Halloween to Pansy’s weird costume party?”

“Yes,” Hermione said. “It was still in the bottom of my bag because I took it off when we all went swimming.”

“And your hair,” he said, yanking a pin out and releasing the entire bun so the curls cascaded down around her shoulders. 

Hermione heard a tiny voice behind her say, “Is that Draco?”

She turned to Drizzy. “Anastasia, Drizella, meet my boyfriend – “

“Fiancé,” he said with irritation.

“- _boyfriend_ Draco Malfoy.”

Draco looked first at Drizzy and then Ana, and put on his polite face. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “You’re… these are your cousins?” He gave Hermione an incredulous look. “You said they were pretty. That you’d always felt overshadowed as a kid. That they looked down on you.”

“Draco,” she hissed.

“You have the weirdest self-esteem issues,” he said, shaking his head. “Anyway, the bags are up in our room if you want to go change out of that costume and put the drunk mouse in your purse in his cage –“

“We cannot keep Theo in a cage,” she said. “That’s not right!”

“ – and I have a present for you.” Draco handed her a box and Hermione took it and started to smile. He met her eye and smiled back and she looked over at Blaise who was leaning up against the bar and smirking at the whole scene. When she pried the lid off she yelped at the ropes – veritable ropes – of pearls interspersed with small diamond-studded balls. He lifted it from the box and draped it over her neck; it was long enough to wrap twice.

“I love you,” he said, stopping to drop a soft kiss on her mouth. “I’m sorry I was late.”

“Y… you’re engaged to… to… Drake _Malfoy_?” Ana seemed to still be processing this information. “You?”

Hermione laced her fingers through Draco’s and squeezed. “The engagement is a bit of a disagreement,” she said. “But we are very much together. Draco, be a love and chat up my cousins while I go get changed, would you?”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, settling down at the table. “So, ladies, tell me about yourselves.”

As Hermione passed Blaise on her way out the door and up to her room she said, “Did you two have this cooked up between you?”

He shrugged and looked innocent the way only a guilty Slytherin could. 

“Yeees – hic,” came from her purse.

“Outed by a mouse,” she said, pursing her lips at Blaise.

“Go on, you,” he said. “Put on something pretty and come back down to gloat.”


	2. Chapter 2

Draco, Theodore, and Hermione were a thing.

That was the main thing to know.

Ron called them ‘fine, but did your thing have to include Malfoy?’ and Luna called them ‘your lovely thing’, and Ginny called them ‘that interesting thing you need to tell me about in more detail.’ 

But they were a thing and in a post-war world where all the members of their year at school who had survived – a number small enough to depress them all – had become friends that the three of them had become not just friends but lovers was hardly the weirdest, well, thing. Even Ron and Draco had become friends, though they would deny it with every last breath even as they made sure to stock ‘that weird Muggle small-batch bourbon you like, you poncy nerd’ and to pass along ‘tickets to the Quidditch World Cup and you know Hermione won’t go so you might as well take them.’

They were even intending to get married. All of them. Draco had elaborate plans that were as ridiculously over the top as everything else he did and Hermione had gotten a subscription to some horrible wedding crafts magazine with the intention of doing it all herself and Theo would just shrug because he honestly didn’t care but if imported flowers made Draco happy that was fine and if rustic displays of photographs using mason jars and clothespins and very small candles made Hermione happy that was fine.

And everything was fine right up until the moment Theo got turned into a mouse. The root of the problem was that Hermione always thought she could do more than she could and Draco could never let her beat him at anything. This was, as Theo had once pointed out to Blaise after one too many shots of whiskey, excellent when you were talking about blowjobs. It turned out to be somewhat less ideal when the subject was complex transfiguration spells.

Everyone was drinking and Hermione was showing off and Draco was egging her on and somehow at the end of the night, no one could figure out how to get Pansy’s hair to change back from bubblegum pink or Theo to turn back into a person.

They all stood around the table and looked down at the small mouse.

“He _is _awfully cute that way,” Daphne said.

“Tank oo,” Theo said. “Iskey?”

“The last thing anyone needs is more whiskey,” Hermione said, sinking down so her chin was resting on the table and looking at him. “Theo,” she nearly wailed. “I don’t know how to get you back.”

He licked a paw.

“Don’t you understand?” Blaise demanded, “You’re _stuck_. Granger here turned you into a mouse. Maybe forever.”

“Iskey!” Theo said again, putting his clean paw down with what would have been a loud stamp if he hadn’t been quite so tiny.

Ron poured a tiny amount of whiskey into a dish and set it in front of Theo. Hermione glared at him and he muttered, “What? If a man who’s been turned into a mouse wants a drink, I say he gets a drink.”

“Ood an,” Theo said, before sticking his face into the drink.

“I am a good man,” Ron said as Hermione squinted at him, pursed her lips, and shook her head. “Better than you’ll ever know,” he added as he wrapped an arm around Daphne, who hit him on the shoulder.

“Draco,” Hermione turned to the gobsmacked blond at her side staring at the mouse. “What do we do?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “We will, Theo, I swear. We’ll get you back to normal.”

“S’okay,” Theo said before he nearly fell over. Luna took an apple slice off the cheese plate at the table behind her and handed it to him and he took it in his paws and began to gnaw on it. “Ouse is okay.”

“It is _not_ okay that you’re a mouse,” Hermione said before asking, “Is that apple good for him? Can mice have apples?”

“He has to soak up the whiskey somehow,” Blaise said as Theo hiccupped.

“Mice can have apples,” Luna reassured Hermione.

“Theo,” Hermione nearly wailed, scooping him up and holding him in her hand. He ran up her arm and sat on her shoulder, holding on to her hair. She turned to Draco, and snapped, “You have to fix this. Somehow. We cannot get married until Theo is a person again.”

“Me?” Draco said, “Why do I have to fix it? You did it!”

“Fix this,” she said again, her eyes narrowed.

Draco ran a hand through his hair and studied the mouse on his fiancé’s shoulder. Theo hiccupped again and at last Draco sighed. “I’ll hit the library up tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You’d better,” Hermione said. “No Theo, no wedding.”

“Right,” Draco said. 

“’ove oo,” Theo said and both Draco and Hermione sighed. 

“I’ll see if I can call in any war heroine favors,” she said.

“Maybe McGonagall will have an idea,” Pansy suggested. “I mean, assuming she doesn’t turn into a cat and eat him.”

“Pansy!”

Draco and Theo and Hermione were a thing, a bit of an inter-species thing for a while, but a thing. Harry took to calling them ‘the pet shop thing’ and asking if Hermione planned on ever turning Draco into a ferret ‘just so they match’ and Blaise called them ‘the weirdest thing ever’ and Luna called them ‘such a lovely thing.’ 

Pansy merely suggested that a mouse themed wedding –once they got this all straightened out, of course – would be just the thing.


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione pushed the pawn forward and then leaned back and said, “Your move.”

Blaise was sprawled out on the bed next to her and he looked first at the board, then at the mouse who had walked onto it, tail wrapped tightly around himself, and was wrestling a knight into a new position. They’d had to find a tiny chess set with hollow pieces and Draco had put special felt on the bottom of each one so Theo could move them.   
“Why do you play chess with him?” Blaise asked. “He beats you every time.”

“He does not,” Hermione said.

“’eck,” said Theo, scampering back to his side of the board where he picked up his apple slice and began to nibble again. 

“He does,” Draco said; he was sitting in one of the chairs in their suite, a glass of excellent whiskey in one hand and his feet kicked out in front of him as he watched the tableau on the bed.

“I beat him once!” Hermione said as she moved her king behind a bishop to get herself out of check.

“Let oo,” Theo said.

“You did not,” Hermione said, glaring at him.

“id,” he said.

“He really did,” Blaise said. “Either that or he was totally drunk at the time. You’re terrible. You are routinely beaten by a rodent.”

“I used to beat my cousins,” she muttered. “And it’s still Theo in there.”

“The idiot cousins we met downstairs?” Blaise asked with a snort. “The ugly ones with the unfortunate shoes?”

“They aren’t ugly,” Hermione objected as she moved another piece.

“They are,” Blaise said.

“They’d be fine if they dressed better,” Draco said, “and maybe found new hairdressers. Honestly, Blaise, how do you run a Muggle hotel?”

“You run Muggle businesses,” Blaise said with a shrug. “It’s where the profit is.”

“Yes, but I hire people who hire people. I don’t have to flirt with the morons in the bar.” He glanced at Hermione who was ignoring him while she watched Theo move his queen one square, a move that clearly confused her.

Theo rubbed his paws together and smirked at Blaise who looked up at the ceiling as Hermione moved a pawn toward the edge of the board, capturing one of Theo’s rooks.

“Merlin, Hermione,” Draco said watching her. “Who taught you to play?”

“What?” she asked as Theo nudged a pawn of his own forward, capturing one of her knights. She picked the captured piece up and set it off the board and then studied the pieces. 

She squinted at Theo who ran a paw through his whiskers before whispering in a tiny squeak, “eck ate.”

“Damn it, Theo,” she said. “When you’re human again I’m going to smack you for how smug you sound right now.”

Theo wiggled his nose and clapped his paws together as Draco and Blaise laughed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Itty Bitty Epilogue**

"Well," Hermione said as she fussed with the strap of a shoe that just wouldn't stay on, "How do you like being human again."

Theo picked up a slice of cheese from the tray they'd had sent up to their suite before the ceremony and nibbled at it.When she glanced over at him and smirked he stared for a moment, then looked at the cheese in his hand, flushed, and put it down."It's good," he said."Life is better this way."

Draco lounged up against the door.He'd been ready to go for since noon, but had refused to leave despite Hermione's half-hearted protests that the groom - well, grooms - weren't supposed to see the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony.He watched her struggle with the shoe and then asked, "Are those things made of glass or something?Why is it so bloody hard for you to get them on?"

"They're just complicated shoes," Hermione muttered."Your mother wanted me to wear them.I would have gone with simple flats."

Theo picked up a glass of pumpkin juice, took a sip, and set it down with a twitch of his nose.It didn't compare to whiskey.He wondered if he could transfigure the pumpkin to something better but just as he reached for his wand Hermione said, "Don't even make me turn you back into a mouse."

"You look fabulous," Draco said. "Honestly, you're the princess every girl wants to be.Could you stop worrying over every last detail so we can go. I'd like to get to our own wedding before the clock strikes midnight."

At that, Pansy stuck her head in the hotel room and said, "Do you three need a fairy godmother to get your arses into gear?Everyone's waiting."

Draco took Theo by the hand and said, "See you at the alter, Granger," and she was left alone to squint at herself in the mirror.She supposed it was fine.It would have to do. And, with that, she left to begin the journey to the hotel ballroom to marry her princes.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on FFN between 2015 and 2017.


End file.
